D O C . 331 O N B R E A OF M E T E O R O L O G Y 533 - 5 8 - M. van Everdingen's proposal was defined in a letter which General Delcambre, Director of the French Meteorological Service and Chairman of a special Committee 1 set up by the [2] International Meteorological Committee, addressed officially to the International Institute for Intellectual Co-operation on November 23rd, 1925. The International Meteorological Committee is composed of the directors of the meteoro- logical services of thirty countries (including Germany and Austria), who meet once every three years to discuss scientific problems of international importance — a definition which covers almost every meteorological problem. The members of this Committee are not official representatives of their countries, and the Committee possesses no financial resources. After a preliminary interview with M. van Everdingen, it was decided that the Sub- Committee should co-opt as experts the members of the special Committee appointed by the International Meteorological Committee. With a view to achieving a satisfactory result as soon as possible, a meeting of the Sub-Committee and the experts was held directly after the meeting of the experts to discuss a draft prepared by General Delcambre. These two meetings took place on March 27th and March 29th, 1926, at Paris. At the [3] first meeting, the technical side of the question was discussed and General Delcambre's draft was approved with certain alterations. Finally, the experts drew up a restricted programme, on the basis of which a start could be made, and prepared, in the order of their importance, the following list of the various desiderata to be attained : (а) Administration of the archives of the national Meteorological Committees and a secretariat of the Committee to maintain relations with international organs interested in meteorology. (b) Bibliography and retrospective international publications (maps of the Northern Hemisphere, experimental balloons, aeronautical climatology). (c) Organisation of the ocean meteorological system assistance in radio-meteoro- logical centralisation and preservation of extracts from ships' logs. The experts estimate that the minimum cost of carrying out points (a) and (b) of the restricted programme would be 100,000 to 150,000 gold francs. These were the conclusions submitted at the meeting on March 29th, at which were present : M. Lorentz, Mme. Curie, M. Einstein, M. Luchaire the experts Messrs. Delcambre, van Everdingen, Simpson, Carvalho, Brandao, J. Bjerknes, Werhlé M. Roper, representing the International Commission for Air Navigation (I.C.A.N.), and M. de Vos van Steenwyck, whom the Committee of Experts had co-opted to maintain relations with the International Institute for Intellectual Co-operation. M. Lorentz presided over the meeting. [4] The Chairman proposed that they should not deal with the technical questions, which has been fully discussed at the former meeting. The experts, he pointed out, were unanimous in endorsing the utility of the proposed organisation, and it would not therefore be necessary to go into details. It would be sufficient for them to consider the relations to be established between the future Bureau and the League of Nations through the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation. The moral support of this Committee might already be regarded as assured. The most urgent question was that of obtaining the material resources necessary for the creation and working of the International Bureau of Meteorology. The discussion which followed this statement showed that the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation might take action in two ways simultaneously : 1 . The International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation might recommend the League of Nations to invite Governments to accord subsidies to the International Bureau of Meteorology. 2. The International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation might avail itself of the facilities it possessed in the form of the International Institute for Intellectual Co-operation and place at the disposal of the International Bureau of Meteorology provisionally a few rooms in which the Bureau could instal its secretariat and archives. The cost of installation would thus be diminished and the Bureau might begin work almost at once. It would be understood that, as soon as the International Bureau of Meteorology became firmly established and had proved its value, it would have to obtain its own premises and could no longer remain a charge on the Institute, which must be in a position to offer similar hospitality to any other scientific organisation created in similar circumstances. The Director of the Institute does not see any objection to such an arrangement. There will be some difficulty, however, in the way of carrying out the first proposal. It would not only be desirable to establish the International Bureau of Meteorology, but the matter is, indeed, an urgent one. Several meteorological undertakings are about to be aban- doned owing to lack of means, and this would create gaps which it would be impossible to fill later. It therefore seems essential that the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation should submit its conclusions to the next (September) Assembly of the League. Unfortunately, [5] the Committee of Experts is not empowered to make any official proposal, as it is merely a Committee of Enquiry instructed by the International Meteorological Committee to submit a report to the Committee at its next meeting on September 20th. 1 Referred to hereinafter as the Committee of Experts.